[quattrokid73]

First paper in course titled Art & Violence:

Write a short paper that identifies and explains some ways in which photography has changed how people look at others’ pain?

This paper is in regard to Susan Sontag's "Regarding the Pain of Others", which I recommend.

I was wondering if any of you might have some ideas of events where photos played a key role in this way? (Other than war if possible)

I by no means want any other help...just asking for some brain-storm action to go off of.

Thanks, Adam

[residentEvil]

i can think of a few dozen websites that i have bookmarked that deal with photos and pain. you can google to find the same.

they can't be posted here

[V12]

wow, read that book and did a similar essay in my art history class last semester.

[brassplayersrock²]

i know you didn't say war, but the picture of the little naked girl running in the street covered in napalm is the first picture that came to mind

[quattrokid73]

thats in the book, so id like to shy away, good example though.

let me know what you guys think.

thanks, adam

[Ganesha]

Here's a list of a few non-war related ones that are good targets.

Migrant Mother 1936, by Dorothea Lange,
Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath, by W. Eugene Smith
Soweto Riots, by Sam Nzima
Kent State, by John Filo

Edit: Ok, Ok Kent State is kind of related to war.

[Eynstyn]

It's obvious to me that the first and maybe the last best place to look is at the work of Annie Liebovitz.

American Masters . Annie Leibovitz | PBS

Leibovitz met Susan Sontag in 1989 while photographing the writer for her book AIDS AND ITS METAPHORS. "I remember going out to dinner with her and just sweating through my clothes because I thought I couldn't talk to her," Leibovitz said in an interview with THE NEW YORK TIMES late last year. Sontag told her, "You're good, but you could be better." Though the two kept separate apartments, their relationship lasted until Sontag's death in late 2004.

Sontag's influence on Leibovitz was profound. In 1993 Leibovitz traveled to Sarajevo during the war in the Balkans, a trip that she admits she would not have taken without Sontag's input. Among her work from that trip is SARAJEVO, FALLEN BICYCLE OF TEENAGE BOY JUST KILLED BY A SNIPER, a black-and-white photo of a bicycle collapsed on blood-smeared pavement. Sontag, who wrote the accompanying essay, also first conceived of Leibovitz's book WOMEN (1999). The book includes images of famous people along with those not well known. Celebrities like Susan Sarandon and Diane Sawyer share space with miners, soldiers in basic training, and Las Vegas showgirls in and out of costume.

Leibovitz's most recent book, A PHOTOGRAPHER'S LIFE: 1990-2005, includes her trademark celebrity portraits. But it also features personal photographs from Leibovitz's life: her parents, siblings, children, nieces and nephews, and Sontag. Leibovitz, who has called the collection "a memoir in photographs," was spurred to assemble it by the deaths of Sontag and her father, only weeks apart. The book even includes photos of Leibovitz herself, like the one that shows her nude and eight months pregnant, à la Demi Moore. That picture was taken in 2001, shortly before Leibovitz gave birth to daughter Sarah. Daughters Susan and Samuelle, named in honor of Susan and Leibovitz's father, were born to a surrogate in 2005.

Leibovitz composed these personal photographs with materials that she used when she was first starting out in the '70s: a 35-millimeter camera, black-and-white Tri X film. "I don't have two lives," she writes in the book's introduction. "This is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it." Still, she told the TIMES, this book is the "most intimate, it tells the best story, and I care about it."
- Rachel Somerstein

American Masters | PBS

Watch a trailer of the show and find out when it's going to be shown in your area.

I watched the show when it was on here and highly recommend you tape it for reference. It is extraordinary in it's scope and depth and interesting on many different levels.

[quattrokid73]

thanks a lot fellas